Clatsop State Forest Northrup Creek Horse Campground

We had the campground to our self midweek.  This is a wonderful campground far enough off the beaten path and being listed has a horse camp most likely keeps the crowds down.  While this is a horse campground, only 8 of the sites are for horse campers, a small tent/RV camping loop of 3 sites is also available, but the parking pads are small so don't think most RVs will fit in the spots.  Each campsite has a picnic table and metal fire ring.  Nice flat ground for your tent with plenty of shade from the large trees.  Campground has a hand pump for water.  Dish wash stations are through out the campground for pouring out you dish water.  The horse camp sites all have corrals for the horses.  Nice hiking trail starts at the tent camping area, "Big Tree Trail" will take you past some monster sized trees.  This will be a campground we return to the next time we visit Oregon

We stayed on Sunday and Monday nights and had the entire campground to ourselves. Not all of the tent sites can easily accommodate a larger tent. Toilet paper was found on the edge of our campsite, but that seemed to be the only trash around. Pit toilets were very clean! Big Tree Trail for hikers was well maintained and we took the opportunity to splash around in the creek. We will most likely be returning to this campground.

Wow, what a hidden gem of a campsite. While primarily a horse-friendly campsite, there are few RV/tent sites, but definitely not friendly for larger RVs. My 2001 Tacoma with a RTT was perfect, but I don’t think the sites are built for large-ish RVs. The scenery around the campground was gorgeous, the bathrooms were clean, there were trails one could take to explore around, and the road in was in great condition. Overall, I highly recommend this site. There were even water dump spots for kitchen water.